Art.

When Human Heritage Sits At Ground Zero

Nagasaki To Baghdad - The Dilemma

August 08, 1993|By Alan G. Artner, Tribune Art Critic.

Monday is the 48th anniversary of the dropping of the infamous "Fat Man" plutonium bomb on Nagasaki, and as we remember the devastation it is important to recall that an architectural historian perhaps deterred even more.

According to top-secret United States Army documents declassified in 1985, leaders in the Army had selected four Japanese cities for possible nuclear attack.

Kyoto was first on a list drawn up in Washington in May 1945; but at another meeting two months later, it was replaced by Nagasaki.

For decades, European, Japanese and American historians believed Kyoto had escaped nuclear attack because Langdon Warner, a Harvard professor and specialist on Asian art, had appealed to the U.S. secretary of war, citing the city's rich cultural heritage.

However, eight years ago, the director of a Chinese agency founded to protect cultural treasures said his former teacher of architecture, Liang Sicheng, had provided U.S. military leadership in China with a map to indicate Japanese cities that had significant historic and artistic sites.

"It took almost a month," the director told the Asahi News Service. "I don't remember all the places we marked, but Kyoto and Nara were definitely included.

"Professor Liang had an important position in a cultural organization established by the Allies and was on friendly terms with the U.S. military authorities, so he had some influence."

How much influence is open to dispute, given that declassified documents show Kyoto as a third nuclear target, and Japan surrendered before the recommended date for attack. Still, Liang's effort joined others on behalf of cultural properties in Europe, apprising the military of a need to protect a great historic heritage.

"I was discouraged during preparation for the Gulf War about how little our government seemed to care about antiquities," says Paul Zimansky, an archeologist who teaches at Boston University.

"Had the war been fought in Greece, they would have been very careful. But in Iraq they did only the most rudimentary research, if they did anything. I didn't hear of any people who worked there being consulted about what the important sites were."

"Nobody bothered to check that this was the cradle of civilization," says Manhattan-based archeological consultant Selma Al-radi, "and that every square inch of it is covered with archeological sites, with monuments dating from the sixth millenium. Nobody bothered. The military had little awareness or cognizance that anything important was even there."

"The U.S. Air Force went out of its way not to hit certain places," says McGuire Gibson, professor of Mesopotamian archeology at the University of Chicago. "I know there was a real attempt. But they could have made a better attempt to engage archeologists who knew the situation to give them a more precise targeting. They didn't seek expertise in deciding what should be hit and what shouldn't, and there was inadvertent damage."

Such damage included strafing of the ziggurat at Ur (the most famous and best-preserved of Mesopotamian stepped temples) and shrapnel hits of the Mustansiriya, a 13th Century university in Baghdad. But most of the other known destruction was indirect, breaking and cracking as a result of tremors from buildings, bridges or installations targeted nearby.

Zimansky saw some of the damage 19 months ago and considers it minor. Mesopotamian archeological sites, he says, rarely contain monuments on the order of the Parthenon. Places that to untrained eyes look only like piles of mud or holes in the ground in fact often contain antiquities. Though several of these sites were hit, he does not estimate substantial losses.

A greater problem occurred with the looting of nine regional museums during the insurrection immediately following the war. These are the museums in Amara, Basra, Kufa, Diwaniya, Suleimaniya, Dohuk and Kirkuk. A list of more than 2,000 stolen items is on deposit at UNESCO in Paris; the total may rise as high as 4,000. Gibson has prepared a booklet giving data on some 200 pieces, several of which are famous works of ancient art. A few have found their way to antiquities dealers in London and New York.

"The main museum in Baghdad spread antiquities, things from all periods, across the country so that people could get a good general idea of Mesopotamian culture," Gibson says, "and the museums conveyed it very well. Those museums today are lost. They probably will never again be restocked."

"Before the war, people in Iraq were proud of the country's antiquities," Zimansky says. "But now, it is my perception that those who worked in the antiquities service are bailing out. They had fixed-pay jobs, and with the economy going to pieces as it is, there is no reason for them to stay. No foreigners are coming through who are interested in what they are doing. And either there is no museum or nobody visits it. An entire system of educated and talented people is falling apart."